LunaMetrics Hosts Free SEO Training for Students and Non-Profits

Article Published: October 27, 2014

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Student leaders from six universities and representatives from seven non-profit organizations came together to learn about search engine optimization and gain practical experience evaluating websites at the second annual Free SEO Training for Students and Non-Profits, hosted by LunaMetrics on October 18 and 19.

Real world practice can be difficult to come by for students. This inspired LunaMetrics, a Google Analytics Certified Partner and search marketing consultancy in the South Side, to provide students with a complete experience, from a project kick-off interview to a boardroom style presentation of their findings. Students were grouped and assigned to analyze a non-profit organization after their training, which emulated a client-consultant relationship.

The interactive training session featured search engine optimization (SEO) best practices and insights into search engine ranking factors. It didn’t take long for the students to begin making valuable discoveries for the non-profits. Two of the participating organizations’ websites were unknowingly excluding themselves completely from Google’s search results because of a simple technical error.

While the students learned from the hands-on experience, the organizations benefited from actionable insights: correcting historical issues, implementing forward thinking strategies, and setting themselves up for positive growth from organic traffic.

Earnie Sotirokos is a Digital Media Specialist for the Childhood Apraxia of Speech Association who represented his organization at the event. Upon the conclusion of the event Earnie said, “I can't thank LunaMetrics enough for everything they did to help my organization out. I'm excited to get started on the SEO work and watch our website grow!"

This year’s trainer, Chris Vella, is a Search Analyst at LunaMetrics. He participated in the inaugural program as a student in March of 2013, which ultimately led to his employment at LunaMetrics.

“I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to pay it forward. This program helped me tremendously as a student, and I’m glad to see it doing the same for others,” says Vella.

LunaMetrics plans to continue holding the event annually to help the non-profit sector of Pittsburgh and to help foster the local tech community. With the success of the program over the past two years, the company is looking into offering a similar workshop for Google Analytics in the future.